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Considering a new phone system for your business? The Phone System Buyer's Guide from VoIP-News provides you with all of the information you need to make a more informed decision. The Guide helps you...Read More

Businesses of all sizes can benefit by automating all aspects of their sales processes with an SFA (Sales Force Automation) solution. But due to the sheer number of features that most SFA solutions...Read More

If you're wondering which CMS is the right one for your organization, this comprehensive guide will take you through the various options available, detailing the pros and cons of each. Download...Read More

VoiceScreener Can Help Reduce Time to Hire

VoiceScreener can help HR professionals significantly speed up their phone screen process. It can also give you the opportunity to interview more people as part of the process. What's the cost? It is free during the private beta! Sign up using the promo code and you can start phone screening more people, more conveniently.

If you are like me, you’ve spent a ton of time on phone screens. When I have a stack of resumes to do, it can be a daunting task of spending a few minutes talking to someone on the phone hoping to get the right impression to move forward. On top of that, you can often have scheduling difficulties that turns the search for a 15 minute time for a phone call into a three day ordeal of trying to schedule, then reschedule and so on.

VoiceScreener may be the solution to some of this. HarQen, the parent company of Voicescreener, gave me the opportunity to try the product out. It is easy enough to set up an interview and to send out invites to complete the phone screen (without referencing FAQ’s or the help section). After someone has completed a screen, you can listen to it repeatedly and send it to colleagues. All very cool.

“Our goal is to start a conversation with savvy HR professionals and gather feedback on VoiceScreener’s usability, feature set and interface,” noted E. Kelly Fitzsimmons, co-founder and CEO of HarQen. “We are looking to start a dialog with the HR community and fine tune our offering.” They want to know how they can improve their product so they are reaching out to us to help them out.

I am going to throw out what I see as potential issues:

It may seem impersonal. Okay, it IS impersonal. Phone screens are often an inexpensive and time efficient way to reach out to potential employees (even ones who aren’t hired). Since we rarely see people drop off resumes in person, it is the first time in the process they get to know someone at the company. In any case, you lose this opportunity.

You might find some people are camera shy. You may act different in front of a camera than just talking to someone else. Same thing goes for a recorded phone call. You may not do as well in a recorded setting as you do just talking with someone over the phone. This could lead to more false negatives (in a process that can already be heavy on that).

Of course, one could say that the application process turned impersonal a long time ago or that having the availability to do the phone screen at any time could help reduce the impact of having the call recorded. I still don’t know if I would use this for a higher level position but when I worked on staffing a call center, I could see the real value behind this. The only limit to how many people you could put through the phone screen is how long you have to listen (not any of the other headaches). That’s a big deal for those in positions where both quantity and quality are needed.

In any case, VoiceScreener is going into a private beta and is allowing you the opportunity to try it out for free. This will give you the opportunity to use the platform for six weeks as well use up to 50 call credits (enough to run a full campaign or two to try it out). Pretty awesome, right?

What do you have to do to get this? Go to their sign up page and enter the promo code YOURHRGUY. This is only good for the first 50 people so what are you waiting for? Jump on it!

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